Jonny Gomes met the media before last night’s Boston Baseball Writer’s dinner and he had some choice words for Alex Rodriguez, reports the Boston Herald:

“He does steroids or whatever, it sucks. He does this or that, it sucks. He’s always in the news, it sucks,” the Red Sox left fielder told the Herald yesterday before the 75th annual Boston Baseball Writers’ dinner. “But this is the players’ union he’s going against. It’s all of us. Not a real good idea . . . I don’t think it’s really a good idea to go after our union. Down to my (expletive) kids, down to the benefits we have, down to our retirement fund, the union makes our lives better. We pay dues to the union for our rights.”

Gomes is certainly entitled to his opinion and his opinion on Rodriguez is in the clear majority based on everything we’ve heard about player sentiments on the matter. At the same time, when union members, like Gomes, are on record saying that he’d prefer that the union not defend A-Rod, and when his opinions on A-Rod are later shown to be quite in step with other members and union leadership – really, what Gomes is saying here echoes exactly what union leadership told the players just the other day – it’s not hard to understand how someone like A-Rod can come away believing that maybe, just maybe, the union didn’t have his back. Which is the central claim in the portion of the lawsuit which relates to the MLBPA.